Kevin Towers really is a connoisseur of fine wine, but don’t ask him to take credit for Los Padres, vintage 2010. He won’t do it, although he either farmed or acquired most of the fruit pressed to make up this interesting little, low-priced baseball team.

Because he won’t, we’ll say it for him: This basically is his club — 75 percent of it, anyway.

Much like the beverage he so enjoys, time will tell if it remains good to drink, or if it was a fluke first bottle. But these Padres, currently holding first place in the National League West, are the Padres he envisioned once he finally determined what would grow best in the eccentric Petco Park climate.

“Nah,” says Towers, who still lives here but has been traveling the country evaluating prospects as the Yankees’ special-assignment scout. “It’s a way of life in baseball. In 1996 (his first season as GM), we won the division, and I was the beneficiary of all the things Randy Smith did before me. I didn’t bring in Steve Finley and Ken Caminiti and Andy Ashby and Trevor Hoffman and all those guys. Randy did.

“My hope is that Jed (successor Jed Hoyer) wins the division. It’s great for a first-year GM to win the division, as I did. But I don’t look at it as my team. It’s Jed’s team.”

OK, if that’s how he wants to play it. But there’s a mighty big asterisk there.

After 14 seasons as San Diego’s general manager and 28 years in the organization, Towers was fired following the 2009 grind, replaced by Wunderkind Hoyer.

By the end of last season, when the Padres, after a brutal start, were one of the most successful major league teams over the final two months, 11 players on the roster were homegrown, the rest acquired by Towers. After he was hired, Hoyer brought in the Hairston brothers, Scott and Jerry Jr., catcher Yorvit Torrealba, veteran pinch hitter Matt Stairs and starter Jon Garland, his biggest coup.

All have contributed, no question. Hoyer has not screwed up. But we all know Towers was a pitching GM, and with the exception of Garland, those making up one of the majors’ brightest young staffs are products of the Towers regime. The Padres can run and defend. When you combine those two with some timely hitting, a splash of power and a jigger of starting and relief pitching, you get a cocktail that goes down smoothly in Petco Park.

Question is: Why did it take so long?

When the Padres moved from Qualcomm Stadium to Petco Park in 2004, they weren’t built for their new digs, although the pitching was good enough for them to win the NL West twice and come within one out of a﻿ third trip to the postseason. But those who had power in Qualcomm Stadium, the Phil Nevins and Ryan Kleskos, lost it downtown. The Pads were dog slow, and manager Bruce Bochy, now with the Giants, wasn’t into little ball the way his descendant, Bud Black, is.

“It took two or three drafts for us to start gathering players who would fit the new ballpark,” Towers says. “We needed time to see how Petco played, to realize how we could win there. You have to develop players.

“Guys like Nevin and Klesko were signed long-term, guys not tailor-made for the ballpark. We started drafting more athletic guys and it’s starting to pay dividends.”

It didn’t help that the team’s baseball people weren’t consulted when Petco Park was being planned.

“The architects asked about the dugouts and the bullpens, not the dimensions,” Towers says. “I remember looking at renderings and seeing that short porch in right field, how it might play for left-handed pull hitters. It’s been just the opposite.

“I bet if you did a study, most home runs hit into that porch have been hit by right-handers. And because of all of the construction in the area, affecting the winds, it plays much different from it did when we moved in.”

There are few gripes now. The youngsters can handle Petco Park.

“Now, the young guys want to be a part of the park,” Towers says. “You’re not getting the veterans complaining and, believe me, we got it daily. They wanted us to change dimensions. It got old.

“I’m a throwback, I guess. I always believed in pitching and defense. It took a while to get there. It’s exciting to see guys stealing and taking the extras base — and not just the speed guys. I talked to Bochy after the Giants got swept here and I asked him what he sees in these Padres. He said: ‘They do an incredible job reading the pitchers; they get good jumps and put pressure on you.’

“This is what Buddy saw when he was in Anaheim. If you get on base and you’re a threat, pitchers can forget what pitch they’re throwing.”

Towers, one of the good guys, doesn’t sound like a man whose grapes have gone sour.

“What’s to gain by being sour?” he asks. “Nothing. I’ll admit I’m somewhat jealous. It would have been nice to see it all the way through, but I’m dead serious: I’m rooting for them hard. Credit the people currently there.”